Posted on 04/11/2011 7:51:03 AM PDT by Davy Buck
"The fact that it is acceptable to put a Confederate flag on a car *bumper and to portray Confederates as brave and gallant defenders of states’ rights rather than as traitors and defenders of slavery is a testament to 150 years of history written by the losers." - Ohio State Professer Steven Conn in a recent piece at History News Network (No, I'll not difnigy his bitterness by providing a link)
This sounds like sour grapes to me. Were it not for the "losers" . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
Now you're starting to sound paranoid.
If you really are a "Philly guy" why the obsession with the Confederacy? Philadelphians were pretty agitated by the idea that slave hunters could come North, claim people were runaways and drag them down South.
There's a myth that somehow the Confederates were just a bunch of guys who sat around in their garages talking about guns until Lincoln sent his SWAT team bursting in to break things up.
Actually, the CSA was another government with all the vices of other governments and then some. I don't think they'd particularly care about my liberty or that of other Americans, so I don't build them up into great victims or defenders of freedom.
Inevitably, when you have a revolutionary situation, which is what the secessionists created, civil liberties suffer. They did so in the Confederacy as well as in the Union.
A different result of the Civil War wouldn't have made us any freer, though it might have made conditions less secure, and more chaotic. I'm not even sure that having two countries in place of one would have made either country freer. Consider smaller countries in Europe and Latin America which were not or are not freer than we are.
Not at all. I'm not at all surprised that Durand somehow managed to miss mentioning all that in his book. But lucky for us reputable historians like William J. Cooper, William C. Davis, Mark Neely, and others have gone to the trouble of detailing the excesses of the Davis government.
In their explanation of that stance, unfortunately, you'll they play the fictitious "defense of the Union" line the North was pushing, as if PA, NJ, NY, DE, D.C, et al. were being shelled, and they had no choice but to fight for and defend their lives.
I suppose you would also say that the claim that the U.S. was defending itself in World War II was fictitious because PA, NJ, DE, D.C., et al. were not shelled.
Lincoln chose war.
Davis chose war. Lincoln fought the war Davis forced upon him.
The Corwin Amendment would have guaranteed slavery. If slavery had been the only issue, I believe things would have played out differently.
The militants had already decided on secession and they weren't going to be swayed by any attempts to buy them off. It doesn't mean that they were indifferent to the survival of slavery, it just means they had already set their course of action.
I don't agree that they were militants, but I do agree with the rest of your statement.
Just what your point is, I don't know, sunshine, but that's what I was trying to say.
And you think I understand what my own point is half the time? LOL!
I understand what you're saying x, but there was more to secession than slavery. Was slavery a major factor? Yes. Were tariffs equally a factor? Yes. I believe secession despite the Corwin Amendment supports this view.
So now you're saying that the South Carolina and Georgia delegates to the Continental Congress in 1776 were really in the pocket of New Englanders?
Tater, we've been over this many times. That was Lincoln's war.
It was Davis' war.
Then I’m sure you have some statistics on hand to support your claim that the only way that the slave population in the US tripled in the first half of the 19th Century was via new importation, right? Because as far as I can see, you haven’t brought any outside data to the table yet.
Really? An article about the fact that a family in Rhode Island was involved in importing slaves to the south supports your conclusion that the South Carolina and Georgia delegates to the Continental Congress were in their pocket? If that's how you "connect the dots" then I think the reasons you hold the beliefs you do is explained.
But since we're connecting dots here, how about this one, which is a much shorter stretch: Southern plantation owners were reliant on slave labor, and the delegates to the Continental Congress were representing their economic interests.
I'm done for the day, but I'll leave you with one more quote, from the Constitutional ratification debate in South Carolina:
Gen. C. C. Pinckney: . . . The general then said he would make a few observations on the objections which the gentleman had thrown out on the restrictions that might be laid on the African trade after the year 1808. On this point your delegates had to contend with the religious and political prejudices of the Eastern and Middle States, and with the interested and inconsistent opinion of Virginia, who was warmly opposed to our importing more slaves. I am of the same opinion now as I was two years ago, when I used the expressions the gentleman has quoted--that, while there remained one acre of swamp-land uncleared of South Carolina, I would raise my voice against restricting the importation of negroes. I am as thoroughly convinced as that gentleman is, that the nature of our climate, and the flat, swampy situation of our country, obliges us to cultivate our lands with negroes, and that without them South Carolina would soon be a desert waste.
I never made such a point, nor would it be mine to support, since the original, unsubstantiated point was made by you, and I simply refuted it.
There were many factors for the slave population increase. There was increased concentration in the South from the North deporting them. The cotton gin caused a huge explosion by decreasing the mortality rate. Both necessarily caused an increase in birth rate, so that too was a factor.
At the same time, the cotton gin was also rapidly DECREASING the value of slaves to slave-owners. The costs of slavery was significant (from purchase to a lifetime of food, clothes, medicine, etc.), and as cotton became less labor-intensive, slavery was dying it’s natural economic death as it did throughout the world. (Remember, no one held any moral authority on the issue, so that point is moot in this discussion.)
To argue that expanding the institution to territories where it had even LESS economic value was some real economic threat to any State in the Union has no foundation. That’s the crux of why I refuted your statement many, many posts ago. Feel free to confirm by doing your own research as it’s more readily available than you may expect.
Lincoln's own secretary called it what it was - Lincoln's war.
Not just “a family in Rhode Island”. The 2nd richest man in America in the early 19th century, from the far North, who singly accounted for up to 2% of the active population at one point (credited for 10,000+ in the U.S. when there were ~1,000,000).
There were many other families from RI (like the Brown University Brown’s in Providence), NY, etc. They effectively controlled major ports in the south such as Charleston, SC. So with all their wealth and power, you still assume they didn’t have the ears of the appropriate delegates? Many more so than the 88% of slave owners in the south who owned 2 slaves or less?
How many cases of 1% here, 2% there do you need to understand it wasn’t just a peculiar “Southern” institution???
Like in so many cases in political history, just “follow the money”.
oh, and pinckney signed the constitution. per that statement, do you think he’d sign knowing he had no way out if the other states wanted to abolish slavery? was he forced to sign or did he do so voluntarily?
the agreement was to play together nice or peacefully separate, but no where did that document grant a self-righteous tyrant (redundant) the authority to wage war against any of the sovereign parties in the compact.
but 600,000 deaths buys you a lot of cred when you re-write the books i guess.
Possibly so!
By the way, I have not read through this entire thread (don't have the time), and was wondering where the Union enthusiasts might have posted the article, section, and clause of the antebellum United States Constitution, prohibiting the expansion of slavery - or even prohibiting the importation of slaves. Now that would make interesting reading...
;>)
Davis started it. Davis lost it. It was his war.
Sure you did. In post #280 you said, " There's no way to increase the slave population (aka "expansion") except by bringing more into the country."
There was increased concentration in the South from the North deporting them.
Barely. in 1790, about the time that the legal process of ending slavery the north got underway, only 6% of the slaves in the US were north of the Mason-Dixon line.
The cotton gin caused a huge explosion by decreasing the mortality rate.
And how did the cotton gin do that?
At the same time, the cotton gin was also rapidly DECREASING the value of slaves to slave-owners.
Is there no bottom to your misinformation? Look, do yourself a favor and look at the prices of slaves after the invention of the cotton gin. The data is easy to find. The fact is that the cotton gin suddenly made cotton a profitable crop and the value of slaves boomed in its wake. The average price of prime field hand was $400-$600 in 1800, $1300-$1500 in 1850, and was closing in on $3000 in 1860. And this wasn't simply the result of inflation. Consumer prices in almost all goods held steady in that period. This was purely the result of the value of a slave in producing cotton. The fluctuations in slave prices over those years, in fact, can be closely correlated to the rise and fall of cotton prices.
To argue that expanding the institution to territories where it had even LESS economic value was some real economic threat to any State in the Union has no foundation.
What makes you say that slaves would have less value in the west? Certainly Kansas seemed to the southerners to be fertile ground for slavery. What made that different from Nebraska, or Iowa, or Minnesota? Could slaves have not been used in the mines of California, Nevada or Arizona? They were certainly used in the Georgia gold mines in the 1830s and 40s.
ah, sorry, i expected to keep reason in it’s place. i guess now the South was also perform breeding experiments and “forced” a 1200% population boom over 50 years with in-house tactics. Since the slave trade was over, i guess that’s the only rational explanation.
the cotton gin’s effect on mortality rates? do we need biology lessons now? do professional athletes break down quicker than your average businessman? strenuous labor catches up after a while...the moderation thereof is generally a good thing with great effects on the health. i now feel like i’m talking to a 12 year old (at best).
i’ll wrap up this vicious (and now seemingly pointless) circle with my next post...
Every time it is brought up, they yell, scream, rant, and quickly change the subject. ;-)
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